1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a network system that includes a plurality of network terminals connected to the network and an administrator device for managing each of the network terminals through the network. This invention also relates to a network terminal constituting the network, a program for operating the network terminal, and a recording medium for storing the program.
Generally, a network system is well-known including a plurality of printers and a single administrator computer for controlling the printers. In this system, the single computer centrally manages the operations of the printers and troubles. This configuration allows efficient solving of printer problems. When one of the printers does not operate, the computer allows another printer to operate instead of the problematic printer.
For security reasons, it may be undesirable to enable the administration computer to transmit any command to all the printers on the network. In this case, a gateway or firewall is provided between the network and the administration computer for preventing the administrator computer from transmitting commands to all the printers.
Some of the printers connected to the network receive commands in only a particular protocol, because they are not connected to a WEB server. For example, if the administration computer transmits a command in Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP), a printer having no WEB server may not receive the HTTP command. Instead the printer may receive a command in Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). In such a case, the administrator device transmits commands to only some particular printers.
The advantages of the network system substantially decrease when the administrator device is allowed to transmit commands to only a few terminals. Japanese Patent Publication No. 11-203087 discloses a network system comprising a terminal connected to a network, wherein the terminal collects information about other terminals, and then transmits the information to an administrator device. However, in the above system, commands must be sent directly to a target terminal. In other words, because the administrator device is controlled to send the commands to only a particular terminal, the advantages of the system is substantially reduced.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a network system including a plurality of network terminals connected to a network and an administrator terminal that controls the terminals through the network, wherein a command can be transmitted indirectly from the administrator device to all the terminals even when the administrator terminal is allowed to transmit a command to only some particular network terminals.